


After St. Louis

by Panthera888



Category: Guns N' Roses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 22:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panthera888/pseuds/Panthera888
Summary: The guys have a tense ride in the back of a van in the aftermath of the St. Louis riot.





	After St. Louis

The concert had been going well. Very well, in fact. That is, until Axl decided to dive offstage and hit a man that was carrying a camera. Everything had gone to hell after that. The guys were quickly ushered out of the stadium and loaded onto a van. No one knew where they were going or how long they had been riding in the back, on the cold, hard floor. All they knew was that they were miserable and pissed as hell.  
Duff’s head cracked against the floor of the van when the driver blew through a speed bump.   
“Shit!” he exclaimed.  
He already had a pounding headache, and hitting the floor only intensified the feeling, sending the pain shooting from his temples to the backs of his eyes.  
“Did anybody grab any booze on the way out,” Slash asked?  
“You don’t need any more fuckin’ booze, Slash,” Axl snapped. “Stop whinin’ like a baby.”  
“A baby? I’m not the one who did a fucking stage dive over some guy with a camera.”  
“The rules are clear. No cameras. If he didn’t want any trouble, he shouldn’t have brought the camera.”  
Slash scoffed. “Yeah, and you’re always such a stickler for rules.” He launched into his best Axl impersonation. “I’m Axl fuckin’ Rose. I can do whatever I want. I can keep people waitin’ at the stadium for two hours. I can hit fans. I can walk off the stage. I run this fuckin’ show because I’m the fuckin’ boss.”  
“I am the boss, asshole. You know why? Because you’re always so fucked up that you can hardly play, let alone help manage this band,” Axl yelled.  
“Will the two of you please shut up,” Duff whined? The more sober he became, the more he started to panic. The headache was getting worse, and he was pretty sure his blood pressure was somewhere between ‘I need two Xanax’ and ‘You’re fucked.’   
Meanwhile, Axl and Slash continued to bicker.  
“That’s what managers are for,” Slash said. “If you’d stop being King Dick for once and let our manager do his job, this whole tour might actually be more organized.”  
“I don’t need to be managed,” Axl spat.  
“So says King Dick,” Slash said, reaching in his pocket for his cigarettes and a lighter. It was empty.  
“Suck my dick, asshole!”  
“Guys…,” Duff whimpered. His breathing was becoming more erratic, and he was struggling to keep control of himself. He stared up at the roof of the van and started counting in his head. ‘1,2,3,4...’ It wasn’t working.  
Slash was still digging through his pockets. He couldn’t find his cigarettes, but his fingers brushed against a smooth, thin object. ‘Hey, even better,’ he thought. He pulled the needle out and took the cap off. He hesitated for a moment. Axl had just busted his ass for being high all the time. ‘Fuck it,’ he thought. His need to have the drug right now far outweighed any shit he would get for it later. He lowered the needle to his skin, right above a vein.  
The van took a sharp curve, and the men went rolling. Izzy, who, up until now, had been ignoring his friends’ bickering, slammed up against the door. A half-second later, Axl collided with him, shoving Izzy’s face into the door even harder, and he felt something tear near his nose ring.   
“Ow! God damnit, Axl!” He yelled towards the front of the van. “Hey, could you guys maybe give us some God damn warning next time?”  
A muffled, “Sorry” came from the front.  
Axl was yelling at Slash again. “You hit my fuckin’ head with your elbow!”  
“It’s not like I planned it,” Slash said.  
Duff was the only one who managed to not go flying off to the side, since he had been gripping the door handle for the past ten minutes.  
Slash kept talking through the chaos. “Now shut up and leave me alone so I can find a vein.”  
Izzy, who was by now sitting up and looking for something to wipe his bloody nose on, snapped his neck towards Slash, who was scanning his arm for a place to put the needle in.  
“What the fuck is that,” Izzy asked, getting angrier by the second?  
“Insulin,” Slash quipped. “What do you think it is?”  
Izzy grabbed the needle and rolled the window down, tossing the heroin out onto the highway.  
“What the fuck did you do that for,” Slash yelled? “That was mine!”  
“I’m still on probation, jackass. If my parole officer even suspects I’m using again, I’ll be pissing into a cup twice a week instead of once.”  
“Dude, what happened to your nose,” Axl asked?  
“You shoved it into a door, that’s what,” Izzy said. He looked again for something to wipe the blood off with. He found a rumpled-up piece of fabric on the floor and brought it up to his face.”  
“Hey, that’s my jacket,” Axl said.  
“Get over it,” Izzy snapped. “Stop being such a crybaby. Slash is right, this whole mess is your fault. The cops are after us, and I don’t even know where we’re going. My parole officer is going to ream my ass.”  
“It’s not my fault you dropped your pants on a public airplane,” Axl said.  
“What was I supposed to do, piss my pants right there in the seat,” Izzy asked?  
“You could have gone to the front of the line and politely asked to use the bathroom next, Whizzy.”  
Slash laughed. “Yeah, Whizzy.”  
“Fuck you both.” Izzy pulled the clothing away from his nose and glanced at it. The bleeding had stopped. He tossed the jacket back to Axl, who quickly shoved it away.  
“I don’t want it now, it’s got your blood on it.”  
“Suit yourself.”  
On the other side of the van, Duff started to sputter. His friends turned to look at him.  
“Hey, guys, something’s wrong with Duff,” Slash said.  
“No shit,” Axl said. “Did he take something?”  
“I don’t know, man.”  
The three men sat up and hovered around Duff.  
“What’s wrong, Duff,” Slash asked?  
“Can’t- I can’t…” he said, gasping between each word.  
Axl searched the floor of the van, looking for any sign of narcotics that Duff may have taken. When that came up empty, he reached inside Duff’s pockets, careful to avoid any possible needles.   
“I’m not finding anything, guys.”  
“Duff, did you take something,” Slash asked?  
Duff shook his head, ‘No.’  
Izzy leaned in and saw Duff shaking, his teeth chattering, still gripping the door handle. “I think he’s having another panic attack.”  
Duff nodded his head weakly, still gasping for air. Izzy pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one. “It’s not weed, but maybe it’ll help,” he said, handing it to Duff.  
Duff reached out with trembling arms and brought the cigarette to his mouth. He took a deep breath, drawing the smoke into his lungs like a drowning man who had just been pulled out of the water, which was what he felt like at that moment. After a few more puffs, his teeth stopped chattering, but the tension in his muscles made his jaws ache. He managed to get a quiet “Thanks” out, before taking another drag on the cigarette.  
Satisfied that he was feeling better, the other three men started to return to their respective places on the floor.  
“Hey, give me one of those,” Slash said, pointing at the pack of cigarettes. Izzy handed one to him, along with the lighter. “Thanks man. I’ll buy you a new pack whenever we get to wherever the fuck we’re going.”  
“Cool,” Izzy said, lighting his own cigarette and lying back down. After a few moments of awkward silence, he looked up at Axl, who had been staring down at him.  
“What,” Izzy asked?  
“Well?”  
“Well, what,” Izzy asked, his patience growing thin once more?  
“Maybe I wanted one,” Axl said.  
Izzy looked up at him, and with the sweetest voice he could muster, laced with sarcasm, said, “Maybe you could have asked politely, Buttercup.”   
Slash laughed again and made kissing noises. “Buttercup,” he said, still laughing. He started to bring his cigarette back to his mouth, but Axl pulled it out of his hand.  
“Fuck you all,” Axl said, grabbing his jacket and moving towards the front of the van. “This is why I don’t share a dressing room with you assholes.”  
“Sure, that’s why,” Slash said. “I couldn’t be because you’re King Dick.”  
Duff, whose headache had by now diminished into a dull throbbing, asked, “Will you guys just   
shut up already?”


End file.
